Carefully Tempered Iron
by Beatrice Benedick
Summary: Gio "The Sandwich Guy" is now Gio "The Old Time Blacksmith". Trade the smiling pickle for a sharp tip sword and you get an answer to a challenge in the MGSG forums. Gio and Betty for the Getty Girls in celebration of the June fest.


**Celebrating the June MGSG Getty Birthdays and Anniversary festive mood. This is an answer to a challenge of Livia at modegirl-sanwichguy forums.**

**Somewhere many many many years ago, back from the time "before horseless carriages became the preferred mode of travel" and way before Horta screwed up Ugly Betty by writing the character Gio off the show.**

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Gio Throughout History Challenge: Gio, The Old Time Blacksmith

**CAREFULLY TEMPERED IRON**

_Plick! Plick! Plick! _was the first thing Betty heard when she entered the town's Blacksmith hut. The door was built in heavy wood but she was strong, being accustomed to heavy work all her life that she managed to open it with no sweat. Yet, she couldn't help the sudden perspiration of her plump body under the corset as the heat of the room slammed against her.

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

Two intimidating furnaces were aligned at the back of the darkened room. It was a sunny beautiful day of summer outside but inside that hellish place everything was covered with dark shadows and the red glare of the smoldering fire of the bricked walls. In front of one of the flames a person was working on something.

The fire cast a light aura on the body of the working man. The silhouette showed every contour of his body while his clothes, drenched in sweat, clung to his muscles. She could see clearly, even from where she was standing, the muscles from his back and his arms move quietly and rhythmically to the sound of the hammer that blasted the room walls. Her boot got stuck with a pile of metal bars and she felt flat on the earth floor, causing a tremendous mess.

"Ha!" laughed the blacksmith without stopping his work and not even bothering to turn and look at her, "should have guessed"

Betty raised herself from the earth floor, cleaned the dirt from her faded red and blue dress, picked the metal bars and placed them in a corner.

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

The guy kept chuckling and working without even looking at her. She got angrier by the second.

"What is it you mean by that?" she said trying to fix her messy hair in one big braid and went to sit on a nearby stool as close to the young Blacksmith as the heat of the fire allowed her.

"I knew he was going to send you" he answered with that throaty voice of his. "Nothing but a loafer, that guy."

Betty wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips. "You shouldn't speak of him that way, Gio. He's the son of our lord, you know?"

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

The guy laughed again. "I know."

She was getting annoyed again.

"So, you have it ready or not?" She crossed her arms.

"Not yet" he simply said and continued working on the sword. "Still needs some working."

"Of course" she complained. "You take longer than everyone. They should have asked Walter instead. He's a lot faster and less annoying to talk to."

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

"What is wrong with your tongue today?" Gio complained.

"Nothing" she said pouting. "I just happened to see Amanda, lady Hartley's maid, with the most beautiful pair of earrings I've ever seen." Betty touched her bare earlobes. How much she wished she had any kind of earrings to make her own.

"And?" Gio said still hammering the iron that slowly yielded to the fire and his strength.

"She told me you made them!" she shouted, visibly angry.

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

Not even then he looked back at her. He kept his eyes fixed in his work, unaffected. The red light caressed his profile that shone in droplets of sweat. His skin was darkened by the frequent exposure of the heat and heavy work but his lips were always gentle and flawless, very unlike most the men of the village. They looked a lot like the drawings that the priest had on his bible. Like those of the angels from Heavens. Betty found herself wanting to know if they would feel as soft as they looked.

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

"How did you know I was working for him?" she inquired as she noticed he didn't even bother to give her an explanation. "Who told you I was working for the youngest son of Sir Hartley?"

He wasn't going to confess he had cornered and relentlessly questioned her former lord, Sir Daniel Meade, when he came to pick an order and she wasn't, as usual, with him.

"I happened to hear you got into his service" _Plick! Plick! Plick! _The metallic sound grew louder. Gio's muscled arms tensed as he applied more strength to his blows "…as his maid."

"Oh!" she just said. Her eyes were still fixed on the face of the young blacksmith, entertained in the contemplation on the little curl of his chin that formed when he was upset... just like he was now. She fancied counting the little hairs in his jaw line that escaped his shaving blade, the handsome shape of his eyebrows, his long eyelashes, the fine-looking nose... She smiled. He could have easily been taken for a nobleman and he was certainly as beautiful as any of the men in the court. She had seen many young nobles while working for the Meades. And yet, Gio was nothing but a blacksmith and owned nothing but that little hut, his skilled hands and her loving heart… oh! no, no, no.... She was too close to the fire. She blamed the heat of the room for making her think such unlady-like thoughts.

Everyone said she was born a servant and she was destined to be nothing but a servant. But still, she insisted she was going to become a lady. She constantly engaged her free time into improving her knowledge and to learn fancy lady-like things like… reading.

"Um… I…" she managed to articulate. "I've been serving Sir Meade's family for such a long time. Now that the castle was taken by the new lords, I got considered for a place in the Hartley's manor."

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

Flames belched from the furnace and Betty jumped on her seat. Gio didn't move an inch. He kept on hitting the metal with the hammer as if nothing had happened. Betty noticed the look on Gio's dark eyes had hardened, as if he was fighting a battle against the fire or, maybe, his own thoughts.

"I don't like you working there" Gio said finally looking at her. "There is talk that he's a demon that devours the innocence of young virgins. You should avoid his presence."

She laughed. "Oh! Gio. Do you believe such nonsense?"

"This is no laughing matter" he said seriously. Betty stopped laughing and looked down. She understood.

He was a dearest friend to her. She trusted him, she told him everything and he was very protective to her, ever since they met, like a big brother. Well, maybe not like a "big" brother. He was the shortest male in the shire.

"I will try to be careful when I'm in his presence, Gio"

"Good" he said focusing once again on his task.

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

A brother… she never had a brother. She always had to rely on herself. So it was great when she came to this village and found a friend to talk to. She didn't like the women in there. They were too shallow, only worrying on laces, boots and flirting with the handsome gentlemen that belonged to duke Hartley's court. Gio was as handsome as any of them, so he was very popular with the ladies, and it annoyed her deeply. But she found it in her heart, she was certain that nobody of the ladies would ever agree to marry a poor blacksmith.

He was nothing but a blacksmith but he was the very skilled in his craft. Soldiers and noblemen traveled from faraway places just to get a sword crafted by him. She wondered how come he wasn't as wealthy as duke Hartley. And the duke's son, Matt, had a particular dislike to the young blacksmith. The feeling was mutual, she could notice. But the irony was that Sir Matt Hartley kept ordering swords to him and Gio kept assembling them in return.

She had been puzzled why sir Hartley had such attitude towards her friend, because Gio was much loved in town. Everyone liked him and she loved him dearly.

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

Betty noticed a little drop of sweat travel slowly across his voluminous left arm. Right in the midway of its crossing, it stopped for a second as if it was intentionally teasing Betty's jealousy. The maid gulped with a bit of difficulty, imagining her own fingers gliding on that wet skin and touching those hard muscles. Just as if it had acknowledged the effect it had already produced on her, satisfied, the little drop continued its quick travel south through the young blacksmith forearm and evaporated into the heat, touching the leather wristband Gio wore with pride. Only a particular guy like Gio would find such thing fashionable, Betty thought.

"What are you staring at?"

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

Betty jumped on her seat, startled. Her face grew angry as his lips began forming a grin in his smug face.

"You are losing your hair" she said the first thing that came to her mind.

The hitting of the hammer stopped in an instant.

Gio frowned. "I am not!"

"You are", she laughed, glad that she had diverted his attention from noticing her previous behavior. He would tease her for eternity. He always did, when he caught her staring at him like she just had. And it had been happening an awfully lot lately.

"I am not", he insisted angrily. There was nothing he feared the most.

"Well, you are" she said rising from her seat. "It doesn't matter if you don't want to acknowledge it. This…" she said touching his forehead with her finger. "is where your hair was when I first met you. And this is where it is now: bald!"

Gio felt his body react to her. No matter how hot the room was, he always felt his body freeze when she touched his skin, like a cold snowflake in winter that sent shivers down his spine. That was how powerful her touch was to him.

He dropped the hammer and stopped her playful hands in a swift movement.

"Aye!" she complained as she freed from his grasp. "You are always so rude! Sir Henry would have never treated me like that. I should have run away with him when I had the chance."

"Aren't you glad you didn't?" he said with a smirk and picked the hammer from the floor. "There's talk in town that the milkmaid bore his child. You remember her: the one with the carrot looking hair".

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

"Charlie" Betty whispered, lowering her gaze. She knew the story well. She had imagined herself married to that gentleman, to finally reach her dreams of nobility. Well, Sir Henry ended up being not so noble after all.

Gio noticed her weary countenance and spoke to her once more.

"You don't have to marry a nobleman to become a lady" he said, looking through her eyes with such intensity that it was as if he could touch her with his gaze.

Her heart skipped a beat. And in that moment she wanted to believe that ladies could marry anyone they loved.

He suddenly smiled back at her. His brown eyes shone beautifully to the light of the fire. She began to feel uncomfortable. Not knowing what to do, she stepped back from him and sat back on the stool.

"Well, ladies don't marry just anyone" she raised her chin. "I am sure to find a proper gentleman one of these days".

"Not in this town, I'm sure" he laughed. "I don't think anyone with any sense would pick a woman with such shrewd tongue for a wife."

She stuck out her tongue.

"You see? Shrewd tongue" he laughed. Betty got even more upset.

"Well, one thing is certain: ladies don't go marring dirty rude blacksmiths."

"And you call yourself a lady?" he said with a mock hurt expression.

She didn't answer him.

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

"So," Gio finally said after a moment of silence, "when are you going to stop envying the jewelry of the ladies of the court and employing yourself to more useful matters like learning to read from the priest?"

She stood up from her chair looking a bit taller than him as he was slightly bending towards the furnace.

"Well, I will return back to my reading lessons. I am a lady, not a slacker" She said proudly and seriously. "There's just so much going on with my life right now."

A weird sound came from the young guy's throat. Betty, taken aback, blinked twice.

"Did you just quack? Like... a duck?" she said repressing a smile and trying to look serious.

He chuckled. "Betty, you better stop making excuses and get back to what's important. What kind of lady sits in a man's house bothering him for hours with nothing else to do?"

"You are insufferable today." She strode to the door. "I will tell Sir Hartley you don't have the job ready. I hope he whips you senseless. You deserve it."

He kept laughing without looking at her.

She said, before closing the door behind her. "And you can say what you want but you just love it when I come here to visit."

Gio cleaned the sweat that ran through his ample forehead and resumed his work.

_Plick! Plick! Plick!_

He took two steps back and gave a look at the metal that was slowly yielding to the relentless force of his hammer and the heat of the burning fire. The metal of the blade followed an even pattern all from the sheath to the tip. He contemplated the perfection of his work for moment, a work that could only be achieved with persistence and patience, and Gio of Rossi was a very patient man.

He returned the sword to the fire.

_Plick! Plick!_

He smiled. Maybe next time, when she came back again, he'd find the perfect moment to give her the earrings he'd spent all week forging and he kept in a very secret place, those earrings he made especially for her and for her only.

_Plick! _

**THE END**


End file.
